Outside the bar she had to pause near the alley where the still-anonymous assailant had nearly killed her, setting in motion a chain of events which had entirely overturned her life ever since. She shook her head and kept going, straight-armed the door.
    Conversation died. The band stopped playing. Smoke obscured the room, but at the far side she could still pick out the man who had to be Carl; the scar alone gave him away.
    He was already firing as the door closed behind her. The bullet ricocheted off her staff as he ran for the kitchen door. Panicked people started screaming and milling around as they tried to get out of the way, blocking anything like a clear shot.
    She could hear his footsteps and a crash, then the sound of the back door banging closed. She went back out the front and circled the building, came around the back just in time to see him turn the corner ahead of her. She could pick out his scent without difficulty, her muscles tensing and releasing fluidly as she quickened her pace.
    He turned the corner. She heard a snapping sound, something hitting the ground as he continued to run. She brought the stick to life before her, taking the force of the grenade on its impenetrable surface. The dumpster tipped over, blocking the alley; she vaulted it without pausing. There he was, sprinting toward an intersection with a red light. Cars were stopping.
    He grabbed the nearest car door—unlocked by some fool of a driver—jerked it open and hopped in, his gun to the driver's head as he glanced back toward her. "Drive!" Tires screamed as the terrified driver floored the accelerator. The car was hit by another, which careened off toward her and forced her to duck out of the way. Carl's hijacked vehicle pulled away from her. She looked around and saw a passing motorcycle, yanked the driver out of the seat and took his place, then sped after her quarry with single-minded concentration, weaving through the traffic.
    They flew through a red light ahead of her. As soon as Carl passed the intersection, a tractor trailer with the right of way tried to pull through. Lucky never thought to pause, but yanked the bike over to one side and ducked hard, skidded under the truck leaving a trail of sparks, then forced the bike upright again on the other side. She could see Carl's expression as he looked back toward her, the fear in his eyes before he pulled back into the car, shouting at his hostage.
    "Turn! Turn left!"
    She rode up onto the sidewalk and cut off the rest of his lead, jumped off the bike onto the car's roof and slammed her staff down through it, just missing Carl as he leaned forward in his seat.
    "Brake! Brake!"
    She kept her grip on the staff as the car slewed to a shuddering near-halt, and then she hauled Carl out through the door. He looked like a man might who had just come face to face with the angel of death—until she twisted his arm up behind his back, after which he looked like a man in considerable pain. She hauled him into the nearest dark alley. There wouldn't be much time before cops started combing the area. By the time they showed up, she had learned what she needed to know and left him unconscious on the ground.
    She had a phone number. Someone called him, he called them. She called Scott and passed it on for research. A few moments later he got back to her; it was a house in South Boston, apparently abandoned for the past six months.
    All in all, a pretty good day.

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